To me? It's never been childish. However, that's not what irks me with MoP. It's the style, culture, and philosophies of the Pandaren and the majority of the other races on Pandaria that make me feel kinda, "meh, whatevs" with this xpan.

Personally, it just isn't my cup of tea. My interests lie in the "traditional" cultures of any fantasy game. Just to pick an example, the who hidden master and "master & student must be at inner harmony and overcome challenges using only their bare hands an...zzzzzzzzzzz"

Don't get me wrong, the majority of the Jade Forest was awesome, (Alliance slash & burn 2 horde bases convincingly *le gasp*) but once I hit Krasarang and Valley, I was just uninterested in the whole, "overcome emotions and here comes Chen beating up most of the mantid army drunk, big surprise there".

For the first time, I actually wanted us to lose at Stoneplow, just so we could fight the Mantid across the zone with Guerrilla warfare and have your factions expeditionary force clash epically at Halfhill and earn the hearts of the local Pandaren by withstanding the swarm just as we did against the Qiraji.

But that's just me. I guess 5.1 will change all that though, I'll just have to wait and see.

Childish. Maybe a little. Completely out of place in the warcraft universe? Hell yes. Its like something Chris Metzen thought up while sitting on the toilet after a long night of getting stoned with his friends when he saw the chinese take out box in his garbage can.

I honestly cringe every time I see a Panda in game. They dont even look like Pandas. They look like giant Gummy bears. The eastern theme doesnt bother me and the Sha.. meh. Not awful. But Pandarians and Grommels etc.. and these "gods" they worship just feel like they were stuffed in the game forcefully.. Like Blizzard said, " hey guys FUCKING LIKE THIS".

Where were all these pandas and Gods they worship when, Oh I dont know the Burning Legion and the Orcs invaded Azeroth? Didnt give a shit.
Where were they when Arthas was like. "Yo. Im gonna fuck this planet up and everyone on it and turn them into my slaves. Eat my shit." The Pandas didnt care cause Im sure arthas was like "Except you guys on that island that has some mists over it. I cant see you very well so Im gonna just leave you out of this. Drunk gummy bears make bad undead minions anyway."

Arthas could see the future FFS he saw the coming of deathwing.

Where were the pandas and their gods when, I dont know... A HUGE FUCKING DRAGON WAS LITERALLY FLYING AROUND THE WORLD TEARING IT APART. He was infused with the powers of the old Gods and could go wherever he wanted. But Im sure he was like "BRO, Im gonna rape this planet bloody and turn every last mother fucker into a smoldering pile of dragon litter. Except this island that has some mists around it. I wont destroy that. Oh and Im sure they will leave me alone too, cause even though Im gonna engulf this entire piss poor planet in flames the thick condensation surrounding that small mass of land will protect it so why bother."

PANDAS DONT FIT IN THE LORE OR THE WORLD. WHY ARE THEY HERE!? Oh yeah see the Chris Metzen inspiration above.

TBH the bottom line is they could have made this xpac just as it is, but it would have been 100x better if the pandas would have stayed a non playable neutral race that ran the story, and trained the other races in the game how to be monks. I mean right from the start they are like "We dont need your motha fuckin war and dont want to choose sides. But lets choose sides." WTF? Just keep them neutral and out of the alliance/horde war and just be the npcs and quest givers that drive this xpacs story. They DIDNT NEED TO BE A PLAYABLE RACE.

I mean look at WOTLK. There were fat walrus people and shit like that, but it never bothered me because I didnt see a bunch of these fat bastards running around orgrimmar disgracing plate armor sets that used to be bad ass. Monk class.. fine add it its cool. But there was NO NEED to make pandas a race.

No, its like watching an 80s kung-fu movie made by white guys. There's even an NPC named Shonuf who yells "I've got the glow".

Just a note: Berry Gordy's Last Dragon was made by a black dude. Not a white dude.

As for the game, it's not childish. Even if one accepted it as actually childish through and through, it's no more childish than previous expansions. And I find it amusing that when people bring out the Lewis quote, all people do is toss ad hominems. Really shows the comparative worth of arguments.

Pandaren feel very out of place in Azeroth. People who played WC3 and got shown this probably would've groaned in disgust and disbelief.

You mean the bread and butter of WoWs playerbase when it initially launched that was clamoring for pandaren to be added? Yeah, no.

As for childish, no.

It has some solid story telling in it, I found the questing experience far less childish than I found the Cataclysm 1-60 revamp, that seemed to take a lovingly crafted (albeit outdated) series of zones with some subtle humour, and turn it into a series of terrible, in-your-face obnoxious pop-culture references.

MOP has some problems, but I don't see childishness as one of them if you can get past the "big fluffy panda" thing, which you should - look at the rest of the races in warcraft.

I never did. I couldn't quite comprehend the reasons behind that argument then, and do not do so now. Personally I believe in giving something a shot before dismissing it totally. I mean sure, you can call a panda character childish, but does it really mean it's true? The whole Kung Fu Panda thing I found a bit ridiculous.

Having played some (real life permits very little - that's why I've only leveled my main thus far and she's nowhere near done with reputations), I still don't get the argument. Sure, there are jokes, puns and "fun stuff", but that doesn't make it any more childish than any other expansion. All expansions have those moments. I like the fact that it's not all so serious from the beginning, and provided that Blizz can forward the story well in patches to come, I guess the story will take a darker turn soon enough as it is.

I'm going to give my honest opinion about this, Mists of Pandaria is probably the least childish expansion we have had. Sure, it's a bit of a turnaround from evil cults, undead, or demons, but it gives a perspective and deep meaning to actual life. It features the Sha, who are basically, embodiment of our negative emotion, which we actually feel in our lives. Blizzard does a good job of connecting to the player with this because it utilizes emotions that people feel almost every day (if not, very often). If you actually follow the lore and pay attention to what Blizzard is saying, we're only a few months into the expansion. We haven't even hit the first content patch. There's not much room to judge the expansion.

I did most of the 2 5.1 questlines, and I must say, wow. Blizzard did an excellent job with creating the war scene with SPOILER: Vol'Jin's attempted assassination, Anduin's confrontation of Garrosh, and Varian's progression from warrior to king.. This content patch is anything but childish and is quite brutal and fun. It encourages World PvP quite a bit at some times, and while keeping a PvE aspect, it introduces a little bit of PvP to it. Sort of like world bosses now (which I like to call PvEvP), I always find half of the raid dying because of Horde/Alliance attacking us mid fight and getting us dead so that they can go ahead and get the kill.

Plus, if you think about it, WoW was never REALLY childish, while in some aspects it was "Oh haha, nice one Blizzard.", and some areas are more childish and less serious than others (Valley of the Four Winds/Stormstout Brewery), you are killing. No matter what zone you are in, you are killing something. Whether it's a simple critter, a ravenous yak, a corrupted mantid, or a fearsome mogu, you are killing something and you always will be. When the moment comes when Blizzard decides that ruthlessly killing stuff because people want you, for simple things I might add, to is too brutal, then I will consider WoW childish. Until then, I think WoW is anything but childish.

It has some solid story telling in it, I found the questing experience far less childish than I found the Cataclysm 1-60 revamp, that seemed to take a lovingly crafted (albeit outdated) series of zones with some subtle humour, and turn it into a series of terrible, in-your-face obnoxious pop-culture references.

Pretty much this. I'm quite an altoholic but it took me over a year before I went back and tried the revamped zones. About the only ones I can remember enjoying were some of Stonetalon Mountains (only because I got to watch Garrosh kill a guy) and the Red Ridge/Searing Gorge blackrock orc invasion for alliance.
I would also like to add my disgust on how fast the zones go. You can't even get past half of the zone w/o the quests being green, even without BoA gear.